


sorry about the blood in your mouth

by annelesbonny



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, F/M, FLUFF EVENTUALLY, M/M, Mentions of Violence, Mentions of brainwashing, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve is sad, bucky is fucked up, clint barton is a nerd, natasha romanov is also a nerd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-14 05:52:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2180394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annelesbonny/pseuds/annelesbonny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adventures in babysitting. Or, Natasha says it isn't babysitting, but Clint's not convinced that they haven't somehow adopted an amnesiac super assassin, but he's going with it. </p><p>The one where Clint Barton believes in waffles and Bucky Barnes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sorry about the blood in your mouth

**sorry about the blood in your mouth**

 

_(i wish it was mine)_

* * *

 

 

“So we’re babysitting?”

 

“That’s not what I said.”

 

“Because it sounds like we’re babysitting.”

 

“ _Clint_.”

 

“I mean, I’m great with kids. I have looked after two different kids and they were only asleep and/or unconscious for like, eighty percent of the time. But an amnesiac super assassin? How does that even work?”

 

Natasha sighs, dropping down on the couch next to Clint. It’s been six months since she, Steve, and Sam, who is awesome and can _fly,_ parked their exploding helicarriers in the Potomac and pissed off probably everyone. Clint had been busy at the time, with things and stuff, but then Natasha dumped every bit of SHIELD intel on the world wide web and the things and stuff became an exercise in getting the fuck out of dodge.

 

He did not, in fact, manage to get the fuck out of dodge. There was an incident and there was a dog and several small kitchen appliances and some very pissed off members of the Irish mob. Fast forward through the good stuff, like torture and Nat swooping in like the hero she is, and here he is, one broken leg later and an impressive array of bruises, but pretty okay, considering. But he missed some things, like the whole SHIELD/Hydra fiasco he always knew he never wanted, Fury’s death and subsequent not-death, and the Winter Soldier, who may or may not be Steve’s long lost boyfriend from the ‘40s. 

 

And who is, if he’s heard Nat right, apparently waiting outside in the car.

 

Which brings him back to the babysitting. 

 

“It’s not babysitting,” Natasha says, curling into his side like she does and it’s natural and sweet and _her_. “It’s helping. I talked to James, he needs this, he _wants_ this.”

 

Clint doesn’t need her to tell him how important that is, how absolutely vital it is that James Buchanan Barnes can want again, can make his own decisions. It means he’s cut his strings, and he may have collapsed, but there’s still time to stand on his own. And Clint knows a little something about being someone else’s puppet. 

 

“And Steve?” Clint asks, idly pulling on one of Natasha’s red curls. 

 

She sighs, soft and sad and fond.

 

“He needs this too, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. James has to establish who he is before he can define who he is around Steve. The risk of him imprinting on Steve is too high otherwise.”

 

“Imprinting?” Clint frowns. “Like ducklings? Barnes is a duckling?”

 

“He hasn’t been his own person for seventy years. Hasn’t really been a person at all. Hydra broke him, used him, and stored him until they needed him again.” Natasha’s voice is tight, a dark, familiar emotion filtering through her voice. Clint laces his fingers with hers. 

 

“Breaking through that kind of control, that kind of _programming_ ,” She spits the word out and it’s tainted with her own memories. “It leaves you blank and shattered, in millions of puzzle pieces. You’re nothing until you start putting those pieces back together. And it’s got to be you who does it, no one else, no matter how good their intentions. Steve may have the best of them, but right now, James doesn’t need someone to fix him; he needs to fix himself. If he leans too much on Steve, he may become a substitute for Hydra. And that would destroy them.”

 

“That’s, um,” Clint falters because the idea of Steve, who he’s only known to be utterly selfless and definitely a bit of bastard after you got to know him, but so fucking _good_ , being related in any context to the people who did this to James Barnes makes his stomach churn unpleasantly. 

 

“That’s horrifying.”

 

“Yes,” Natasha agrees quietly. 

 

“And you think this will help him? Staying here with us?” Clint asks, already mentally planning on moving all his crap off the bed in the guest bedroom. 

 

“Maybe.” She says. “What they did to him...It’s bad, Clint. There may not be enough left of him to stitch back together. But I think..I think he might be able to come back from this.” She pauses. 

 

“I need to believe that he can come back from this.”

 

Natasha admits it quietly, and with a depth of emotion she doesn’t reveal easily. 

 

Clint looks down at her head on his shoulder, hair redder than ever against the black of his t-shirt. He thinks of blood and pavement and the sound of rain on a window, making the stained glass panels run with tears. He thinks of a shot he didn’t take and a smile like a razor blade and laughter that tastes like sunlight. Second chances are something he can give, and broken things heal.

 

“Well, then, what are we waiting for?”

 

Apparently Barnes really had been waiting in the car because Natasha is only gone for a few moments before she’s back, the Winter Soldier in tow. Except that’s not what he is anymore, Clint can see that clearly enough. The man currently standing in his living room, shoulders slumped and curled in on himself like he’s trying to take up as little space as possible, is not the same man who brought carnage to the highways of D.C.

 

Natasha speaks quietly to Barnes in Russian while Clint appraises their new houseguest from his place on the couch. Exhaustion hangs on Barnes like a second skin; he looks like he hasn’t slept in years, and if Hydra put him on ice whenever they weren’t jerking his strings, then maybe he hadn’t. There are deep, dark circles under his eyes, a mottled purple and black stain on too pale skin. He keeps his left arm tucked in close to his side, like he’s trying to hide it, but Clint catches a glimpse of metal. Dark hair falls into his eyes, but doesn’t obscure them completely. They’re not blank, exactly. They’re haunted, brimming with shadows that can’t yet be named and questions that can’t be answered. 

 

_My God_ , Clint thinks, _we don’t have enough blankets. Or waffles. This boy needs so many blankets and waffles._  

 

Natasha touches Barnes’ elbow gently and some of the tension leaves his body, not much, but it’s a start. Clint sure wasn’t expecting him to throw himself down next to him and ask about them Rangers. 

 

“James, this is Clint.” Natasha says. “Clint, be nice.”

 

Clint grins and waves. “Hey, man. Nat tells me you’re gonna be crashing with us for awhile.”

 

Barnes frowns at the cast on Clint’s leg. “What happened?” He asks and his voice is low and gravelly, like he’s been sick.

 

“There was a thing with some people that really didn’t like me,” Clint says easily. “Wasn’t you,” he adds, guessing correctly the question Barnes had really been asking. 

 

“Good.” Barnes says so softly that Clint almost doesn’t hear him.

 

“Bedroom’s this way,” Natasha says, and Barnes follows her without comment, clutching a small, black duffel bag. He watches Natasha intently, like she’s the only thing keeping him focused and that if he looks away even for a moment, he’ll be the one to disappear. Clint knows the feeling. 

 

The days after the Battle of New York, when he had his head back and the only person looking through his eyes was himself, he couldn’t bear to have Natasha out of his sight, and at the same time, he was terrified to be alone with her. He’d watched the tapes of Loki’s interrogation, what he said to her, how she played him like a fiddle because _that’s his girl_ , but there was tension in her shoulders that wasn’t faked. Reactions that he could read from the lines of her body and the nuances of her voice that only Clint could see because that’s how well they know each other. And Loki had exploited that gleefully.

 

_“I won't touch Barton. Not until I make him kill you, slowly, intimately, in every way he knows you fear.”_

 

Trusting himself again after that, it took awhile. Sleepless nights and longer days, battling the constant humming in his head, a mantra of _what if she hadn’t been able to stop me?_ He doesn’t know if he’s forgiven himself, doesn’t know if he can, and he still wakes up sometimes in the middle of the night, terrified that if he looks in the mirror, it won’t be himself staring back. There’s no training for this kind of shit, no protocol for a loss of self so complete that when you look at your hands, you’re convinced that they’re not your own. And somehow, Natasha stands despite it all, every time she’s been broken, remade, re-programmed, she comes back. So yeah, Clint understands why Barnes has taken to her. She’s confidence and grace and understanding and unwavering persistence. She’ll take your battles and make them her own because that’s who she is. If there’s anyone to walk through hell with, it’s Natasha; she already knows the way.

 

Clint orders pizza that night because pizza is awesome and Natasha and Barnes haven’t emerged from the guest bedroom in hours. Even scary Russian assassins who could kill Clint with their left pinky need to eat. He meets the pizza guy at the door before he can ring the doorbell and startle Barnes and Nat from whatever ‘no we don’t kill people in the house’ calming yoga they’re no doubt in the middle of, and he even manages to navigate the two steaming boxes on crutches because he is _graceful_.

 

It’s the smell of melting cheese and happiness that finally brings Natasha and Barnes out of seclusion. Barnes is even looking a little better, more tired, but less empty. It’s a start.

 

Clint opens the pizza boxes with a flourish, “The food deities have been good to us.”

 

“Did you get veggie?” Natasha asks and Clint just looks at her. Like he would forget to do that after the last time. 

 

He’d made the mistake of trying some sort of special, there was like goat cheese and all this weird green stuff. It was good, but different. Natasha had just stared at him. Sat across from him and fucking stared him down while he tried to eat and it may have been one of the top ten terrifying experiences of his life. So yes, he got veggie.

 

Natasha attacks the veggie pizza with gusto, sitting cross-legged on a kitchen chair. She’s pulled her hair up in a loose ponytail and she’s wearing one of his shirts. Barnes is staring at his own slice of pepperoni like it holds the answers of the universe within it’s baked, cheesy goodness. Which, Clint has to admit, it might.

 

“There was a diner.” Barnes speaks suddenly, softly. He still doesn’t look up from his plate. “We...I think we...went there, sometimes.”

 

Natasha doesn’t say anything and Clint follows her lead. She’s watching Barnes closely, gauging all his responses, the tightening of his eyes, his fingers tapping the side of his plate. He’s agitated, wanting to express something that he doesn’t have the words for yet.  

 

“There was good pizza.” He decides on finally and Natasha nods, but still doesn’t speak. Clint isn’t entirely sure what she’s waiting for, but he goes with it. 

 

“This is...” Barnes trails off and glances at Clint, something akin to worry in his eyes. 

 

Clint can’t help it; he starts laughing. Natasha throws a napkin at him. Barnes just looks confused. 

 

“Sorry, man,” Clint tells him. “I know the pizza’s shit, it’s okay, it tastes like Jersey threw up on some weird, pita like thing? I don’t even know what is happening with this pizza, seriously. I’d be worried if you did like it.”

 

“It’s pretty bad.” Barnes says and that might be a hesitant smile teasing one corner of his mouth and it makes him look younger, like there really is that kid he used to be under all those battle scars. 

 

Clint leans back in his chair, shifting his leg into a more comfortable position. 

 

“Yeah, well, I’m in between paychecks and you know what they say about getting what you pay for.”

 

Natasha, on her way to the sink, hits him on the back of the head lightly, “You don’t need to tell me that.”

 

“Okay, no, I’d make an awesome prostitute and you would not be able to afford me.”

 

“Really.” Natasha says mildly, leaning against the counter, relaxed and fluid. Except for that one eyebrow and the blue steel in her eyes that’s only about half joking. 

 

Clint sighs deeply because they have _talked about this_. 

 

“Nat, you are not a Russian heiress, there is not a secret cache of blood money buried under our apartment, and the movie _Anastasia_ was not, in fact, actually based off of your early life.”

 

She stares at him for one, long moment, not one muscle twitching, lithe and lethal, and he still doesn’t know how she does that. They did not cover How to Make a Grown Ass Man Shit Himself by Looking at Him in _his_ training. 

 

Finally, she says, “Well, it wouldn’t be a _secret_ cache if I told you about it, now would it?”

 

“Oh my God.” Clint drops his head onto the table with more drama than is entirely necessary and his skull raps sharply on the wood surface. It hurts. “Awh, head.”

 

He elects to ignore Natasha’s quiet laughter.

 

Barnes looks bewildered, his pizza sitting cold and forgotten on his plate, and his eyes flick between Clint and Natasha, a frown creasing his forehead. His eyes are wide, but not frightened. In fact, he looks the most relaxed that he’s been since he stepped inside their apartment, which is strange because Clint has never known anyone who is at ease around Natasha and himself. Clint probably shouldn’t find that the tiniest bit endearingly, mainly because the guy could literally kill him with like, a thumb tack. 

 

“Look at us,” He says to Barnes and grins. “Dinner and a show.”

 

Barnes doesn’t know how to respond, or doesn’t understand yet that he doesn’t have to respond at all. Doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to do. Clint aches at that. He gets it, even with his highly limited and fortunately short lived experience with brainwashing. He knows how it feels to lose all concept of choice. 

 

Natasha raids the cabinets for liquor, while Clint waits patiently for Barnes to put his thoughts into words.

 

“I...like it.” He says finally, hesitating for only a moment. 

 

Clint beams. 

 

“See, Tasha? We could have our very own double act. Barnes would support us.”

 

Natasha flicks the back of his head before she sits back down at the table, chair scraping against cheap linoleum, and places three glasses and a long necked bottle of vodka down in front of her. She pours, foregoing shot glasses entirely, and slides a glass eachto Barnes and Clint.

 

“Drink up, fellas.” She says, smirking behind her own glass before downing the whole thing in one swallow.

 

“I hate you.” Clint mutters at her, before taking a swing of his own, biting back a grimace at the burn. 

 

“You can call me James.” Barnes says quietly a moment later. He hasn’t touched his own drink yet, just trails one finger idly around the rim of the glass, contemplating.

 

“Not Bucky?” Clint asks and Natasha looks at him sharply, questioning.

 

Barnes, _James_ , hesitates for a second.

 

“Not yet,” He says softly and knocks back his glass, his expression unchanging. 

 

“Okay.”

...

 

Clint isn’t entirely sure how his night ended in what to the untrained eye would look like a threesome involving two Russian assassins and one very confused not Russian assassin, but he does know that this all began because he had the brilliant idea to watch _Anastasia_ with an amnesiac, highly traumatized soldier who is probably in love with his best friend whom he can only remember on a very good day.

 

In hindsight, not a brilliant idea.

 

“I don’t understand what’s happening.” Clint says and Natasha hushes him, glaring from the other side of the bed.

 

“You’ll wake him up.” She hisses and curls her fingers lightly around the back of James’ neck when he starts to shift and murmur in his sleep. 

 

Clint resigns himself to his fate because a) Nat has her Protective Eyes on and will definitely kill him if he tries to move and b) this is more comfortable than standing outside the bathroom door for two hours trying to talk James down from a panic attack. Movie night had not gone very well. 

 

He leans back against his pillow and closes his eyes. James has his head on Natasha’s thigh and one hand wrapped lightly around Clint’s wrist. Touch seems to soothe him when he’s the one to initiate it and Nat insists that it’s important for them to go along with what he wants, that he’s relearning how to know what he needs. Clint aches for him, aches for Steve, aches for what they’ve given and what they’ve lost. He wonders guiltily if it would have been better if they had never made it home, if James had died in the fall, Steve in the ocean. Would dying as heroes and legends be better than living as broken men? Less painful, for sure, but better?

 

Clint can’t answer his own fucking question and he hates it because _of course_ it should be preferable to stay dead rather than to wake up in hell, but he knows better now. Death takes a hell of a lot but it doesn’t take everything and Bucky Barnes would never have willing left Steve Rogers behind. Steve lets his head fall below the water and James drags him out. James is dragged into the fire and Steve pulls him out. There’s no version of this that has one without the other and the universe, in all its fucked up glory, seems to know that. As long as Steve Rogers is around bodies of water, there has to be a James Buchanan Barnes there to pull him out and as long as there is fire at Bucky Barnes’ feet, there’ll be a Steve Rogers to put out the flames. Fate laughed long and hard when she set her sights on these two.

 

Sitting here with James and letting him hold his fucking wrist seems like a small favor to ask. The world owes him a hell of a lot more.

 

“We have to help him,” Clint says quietly.

 

Natasha looks at him, her face cast in shadow. “We are.”

 

Clint makes a small, frustrated noise and James’s metal fingers tighten briefly. “No, I know, I mean we _have_ to help him. He has to get better, Tasha, they can’t, they don’t get to win. Not this time.”

 

He can feel Natasha’s gaze on him, and when he meets her eyes, they’re soft and full of emotion,something that never fails to take his breath away. He never wonders if she loves him; he knows she does. But right now, it’s written on her face, in the slight curl of her mouth, the one, stubborn line on her chin, the sweep of her eyelashes against her cheeks. She is strong and she is vulnerable and he is hers. 

 

“Your heart is the best of them, Clint Barton.” She says and smiles at him, slow and sweet, and he knows, he _knows_.  

 

Hours later, he falls asleep to the sound of her voice, singing softly in Russian.

 

...

 

Clint wakes slowly, someone, Natasha, must have pulled the black out curtains across the large window because the room is still dark even though Clint’s internal clock is telling him it’s almost noon. He groans and rubs the back of his hand across his sleep crusted eyes. Someone shifts next to him and Clint becomes aware of several things at once. First, there is definitely a person who is not Natasha in the bed with him. Second, he seems to have lost circulation in his left hand, and finally, there is freshly brewed coffee somewhere and _he needs it_. 

 

He sits up carefully, easing his wrist out of James’ grip, wincing slightly at the small, dark bruises left by metal fingers. James whimpers and his empty hand grasps at a pillow pitifully and Clint feels sick. He wonders how long it’s been since he’s been touched by or allowed to touch another person without the promise of pain. Clint’s done a lot of things, seen a lot of things, and most of them have been not very good things, and he’s okay with that, he’s not made out of the heroic stuff. Not like Steve, not like James. But this, this man on his bed, curled up and diminished, clutching at a pillow because maybe it feels like safety, this is the result of the kind of monstrosity that shouldn’t exist. Clint’s not an idealist, he doesn’t take much stock in should-of-beens. There are things that are and things that aren’t and a whole lot in between, and none of it cares much about what it should be. But he looks at James, knees tucked up so high they almost touch his chin, dark purpled bruises under his eyes, the way he doesn’t quite understand what it means to choose and want, the fact that he’s here with them right now because he can’t be with Steve because if Steve replaces Hydra in Barnes’ addled, broken mind, it will really kill them both, and all Clint can think is that _people shouldn’t be capable of this_ , that everything he’s sacrificed, what Nat’s sacrificed, what they’ve all sacrificed, all the red in their ledgers and all they’ve done to wipe that red out, has to be worth it and _people shouldn’t be able do this kind of shit_.

 

They can though, and they do, and all Clint can do right now is pull a blanket over James and hope against every shitty odd, that goodness is stronger than cruelty. 

 

Clint hobbles into the kitchen, trying to keep his weight on his unbroken leg without the aid of his crutches which are somewhere. He hasn’t lost them. Really. Natasha’s facing away from him, staring out the small window over the sink. Flowers grow in a little box just underneath it. She’s on the phone. 

 

“You know I would tell you if anything was wrong. He’s fine, Rogers, I promise. Last night was a little rough, but we’ll pick a better movie next time. Yes, I know not _The Fox and The Hound_ , give me a little credit, Jesus Christ. Ha, funny. _He’s fine_. I even made him eat all his vegetables, except, that one is a lie, we had pizza. Okay, yeah, I know. Okay. Yeah. Keep your head up, Steve. Yeah. Bye.”

 

Clint snags a mug, pours Nat’s fantastically dark coffee until the mug is dangerously full, and sits down at the table, groaning as he stretches out his leg. The cast should be coming off in a few days, but it still aches like a bitch.

 

“That was Steve.” Natasha says without turning around. Her back is stiff, and two fingers press against her forehead. Clint sips his coffee and waits for her to compose herself.

 

When she finally turns to him, her eyes are a little too bright.  

 

“I don’t know how to help him.” He sees a part of her shatter when she says it, and they’re not just talking about James. Not right now. 

 

After the shit storm that was New York and Loki and everything, Clint had let a couple of days pass before needing to take some time. He had to make sure his head was screwed on right, needed to know that he was himself and no one else. Natasha had stepped back, gave him just enough space before dragging his ass back to her and their bed. He knows that she spent a lot of time with Steve while he was gone because she likes him and they work well together. And anyone who spends any amount of time with Steve quickly discovers how fucking sad that man is. Clint had been too busy having his brain hijacked before to really think about what it must have been like, to think that you had died for something, only to wake up 70 years later to discover that everything’s just as fucked up as it’s always been. Then to be told, not even a week after being _honest to God thawed out of a glacier_ , that congrats-a-fucking-lations, aliens are attacking New York, suit up. Steve probably wouldn’t have left his apartment that first year if it hadn’t been for Natasha dragging him out for drinks and Stark’s habit of sporadically kidnapping the people he likes.

 

Natasha doesn’t do well with seeing her friends suffer, and considering that she has as many friends as he does and he has about five, once you’re a part of Nat’s Circle of Tolerable People, there’s no escape. There will be aggressive cuddling if she deems aggressive cuddling to be necessary. And God, does he love her for it, but she sees Steve and all his broken pieces and she has to fix him because she cares about him and everyone she cares about has to be fixed because maybe then she can be too. He wonders sometimes if she knows how much he understands her. He thinks that she does. 

 

“You’ve helped him, Tasha, you have.” He tells her because she needs to hear him say it. 

 

Natasha shakes her head, her jaw clenches with frustration. 

 

“It shouldn’t be this fucking hard,” She snaps, and this is about something more. She’ll tell him when she’s ready and Clint’s always been good at waiting. 

 

“Natasha?” James’ voice is rough with sleep and he stands in the doorway uncertainly, his bare feet curling against the cold linoleum floor. 

 

Clint gets more coffee while Natasha talks to James quietly in Russian. By the time his mug is full and Nat has coaxed James to the table, Clint has made up his mind. He’s going to make waffles. This kid needs _so many waffles_.

 

...

 

They fall into a routine eventually. 

 

The first week, James talks to Nat mostly, in rapid fire Russian. He speaks to Clint occasionally, usually when Natasha is gone, but Clint doesn’t mind. The guy’s been through enough already, no need to add ‘must make small talk with Clint Barton’ to that list. They watch movies instead. James usually picks and his taste changes daily. He likes to choose and Clint has a strong suspicion that he also likes Clint’s sighs of despair when they go from watching Inception to Grease in one afternoon. Nat continues to talk to Steve once each day and James watches her each time, but doesn’t say anything. 

 

A month passes and it feels like a milestone, somehow. Clint lounges on James’ bed, reading a shitty romance novel while James naps next to him. He still sleeps better when Clint or Natasha are close and neither of them can deny him such a small comfort. He has nightmares. Some times are worse than others, but he hasn’t thrown Nat into a wall for almost two weeks and they take their victories where they can get them. A small, pained whimper pulls Clint out of his disgustingly riveting book. 

 

“No, no.” 

 

Clint hates the nightmares where James is begging the most. Sometimes he still sounds defiant, stubborn, at first, but it always ends the same, with James tossing his head desperately and clawing at the sheets, shredding them.He pleads and cries out and tears slide into his hair. And Clint wants to kill every fucking member of Hydra again and again. 

 

“He’s not dead, he’s not dead. You’re lying, you fucking bastards, stop lying to me _Steve isn’t dead_.” 

 

Clint drops his book. All the weeks that James has been staying with them, he’s never mentioned Steve by name. He talks about him abstractedly, always using “him” or “he” or “we”. Sam thinks it might be a coping mechanism; names are made out of so much more than just letters, they’re associations and memories and the sound of a voice. They can dredge up things that were forgotten, painful things, in bright bursts of clarity.

 

“ _Steve_.” James says his name like a prayer, broken and pleading, his throat raw and stumbling over every letter and Clint realizes suddenly, horrifyingly, that he is hearing the moment they finally broke James Buchanan Barnes. 

 

“James, wake up.” Clint says softly at first and then louder. He is careful not to touch him. He’s started flinching violently, his whole body taut and trembling. Clint shifts one leg underneath himself slowly, extremely grateful that the damn cast is finally off. The nightmares do get violent sometimes, James kicking out viciously like a cornered animal or on one memorable night, almost biting Nat, but what’s happening now is something different. Clint glances away from James for a moment to send a quick text to Natasha. 

 

He barely has time to look up from his phone before James barrels into him, sending them both off the side of the bed. Clint hits the ground hard, but manages to get a knee between them and shoves James off of him. He launches himself at Clint again immediately, snarling, and his eyes aren’t blank; they’re bright and blue and agonized. 

 

“Where is Steve? Where is he? He isn’t dead. He wouldn’t do that to me, he didn’t leave me here, _where is he_?”

 

James is strong, but his punches are wild, erratic, he is written with grief and he’s confused and scared. Clint dodges around him easily.

 

“James!” Natasha stands in the doorway, her hair damp from the shower, eyes wide and more scared than Clint has seen her in a long time. 

 

James freezes, and then staggers once before his knees give out, sending him crashing to the ground. 

 

“Natalia?” He asks and looks up at her, voice small and terrified and so fucking young.

 

Natasha nods and James only looks even more bewildered.

 

“I don’t-” He breaks off with a gasp. And then he starts screaming. He doubles over on his knees, clutching his head. Tearing at his hair, he keens, high and pained and Natasha drops to her knees at his side. He starts pleading.

 

“No, no, Natalia, I never meant to-”

 

“Shh, it’s okay, I know, James, I know. You’re safe. It’s okay.” Natasha says soothingly, calmly and Clint doesn’t think she has noticed the tears that slide down her cheeks. 

 

Clint slumps against the wall as he struggles with the realization that Natasha knew James. It made sense in a twisted way. What Nat went through was a lot like what Hydra had done to James. The Cold War had reached its end when Natasha was with the Red Room, and it was possible they had met. She would have been young, 13 or 14.

 

The pieces fell together and he slid to the floor because suddenly he couldn’t support the weight anymore. Natasha said things in the dark, when they were lying pressed together, skin to skin, sweat drying between them, that she would never talk about when they light could touch them. 

 

She had trained under a man once, someone who had been loaned to the Red Room, very dangerous, very skilled; they called him the best. She called him Yakov. She remembered thinking that his eyes were sad. So blue, but so sad. He did train her. It was hard and he was relentless, but never cruel. Never once did he pinch her or touch her or look at her with wanting eyes. After a rough session, she had been exhausted, but exhilarated because she had gotten the drop on him for the first time. It had only been a moment, the rush of success and adrenaline was a good feeling and she had yet to learn that those kind of things were supposed to be contained, eradicated, let go. It was an impulse, a small, happy part of a little girl that was still a little girl, and she had stood up, tall as she could on her toes and kissed his cheek. He had frozen, eyes wide, expression like nothing she had seen before and she had been terrified that she had done something wrong, but then, he smiled at her. And it was like the sun coming out after the longest storm.

 

A week later, he brought her a doll. She had forgotten what holding a doll felt like. She had to be gentle, soft. Her young hands were more used to the weight of a gun, more accustomed to snapping bone. This small toy had soft hair and pretty, painted eyes. He told her to keep it hidden and to wait for him. They were going to do something soon, something only for them, and she would be safe. She didn’t understand, but she trusted him. The next day though, he was gone. They found her doll and made her burn it. She had cried bitter tears and then they had made sure that would be the last time she did that either. 

 

Clint leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. Steve didn’t know. That’s what was eating her up, what made her wary during his calls, and guilty after them. She hadn’t told him; she didn’t know how. 

 

Natasha inches closer to James carefully and Clint can see that she is vibrating with the need to touch him, to soothe, to _do_ something, but she won’t, she won’t touch him until she’s sure it’s what he wants. Bent over, arms wrapped around himself as if that’ll be enough to fix his fractured self, he looks up at her. A tear slips from the corner of his eye and he reaches out slowly, his fingers trembling, andgently tugs one of Natasha’s red curls. She doesn’t look away from him, not for a second, but her breath hitches in her throat.

 

“ _Kotyonok_.” James whispers and shudders. 

 

Natasha rests her forehead against his and presses his hand to her heart, and hers to his. Clint can see that this is a motion that is familiar to her, something they’ve done before. She takes deep breaths and murmurs quietly. Slowly, his body relaxes and he slumps forward. She catches him, guiding his head down to her shoulder, and he goes willingly, desperately, hands gripping her arms. She cups the back of his neck, while she runs her other hand up and down his spine soothingly. 

 

They should look strange, him, at least a head taller than Nat, tucked against her small frame, clinging like a child, his metal arm, foreign and intimidating, but still _his arm_ and he uses it to hold her gently. She’s the most dangerous person Clint knows, but when she rests her head against the top of James’ head, eyes closed and tear tracks on her cheeks, something like peace settles over her.

 

They don’t look strange; they look like they’re healing.

 

Clint sits and watches them. It’s like pulling on the one loose thread in a tangled mess of strings; the process has started, but everything else is still knots and frayed edges. They pull apart carefully, wariness crawling back into James’ eyes while Natasha’s remain red-rimmed and frozen in a fragile calm.

 

Dark hair falls across James’ face like a curtain, damp with sweat and tears. There are red marks on his temple from where his fingers dug into his skin. 

 

“You are Natalia Romanova.” He speaks with quiet deliberation, trying each word out on his tongue as if tasting its truth. “I trained you. I knew you.”

 

Natasha folds her legs gracefully so they’re sitting facing each other, her cross-legged and him still half in a crouch, either prepared to curl into himself further or bolt for the bedroom door. 

 

“I was very young.” She says, choosing her words with care. 

 

“I remember. I remember-” James breaks off again with a pained gasp. He groans and grips his head.

 

For the first time since she came into the room, Natasha turns to look at Clint. He is staggered by the depth of the pain he sees in her eyes. There are shadows here that she has not shared, even with him. 

 

“Call Sam.”

 

Clint nods. Controlled, calm. They’ll be okay. _They’ll be okay_.

 

He wishes it didn’t feel so desperate.

 

...

 

“You guys realize that this is so far out of my field of experience that I can’t actually think of a suitable metaphor for how far this is out of my field of experience, right?”

 

Out of the three of them, Sam looks the least exhausted. Natasha is doing a very convincing impression of a dead person and the only reason Clint is sure that she’s not actually dead is because she’s drooling on his shoulder, and Clint was literally hit by a car about ten minutes ago so maybe the two of them aren’t the best point of reference.

 

The car thing was not his fault, there was a stop sign, and he was fine, mostly, and had more waffle batter now and that’s important.

 

Clint blinks up at Sam wearily. Nat mutters something indecipherable in her sleep. 

 

“Is there someone you can call?”

 

Sam sighs and drags his hand down his face.

 

“This isn’t something you can just call someone about.”

 

“But we called you.”

 

Clint is really fucking tired.

 

Sam looks at him with equal parts exasperation, fondness, and serious concern for the state of his mental and emotional capabilities. Clint is far too familiar with that last one.

 

“Between you, Captain Sadness, and Natasha “My past is would give your nightmares nightmares” Romanoff over there, I would consider less world saving and so much more therapy.” Sam says dryly. 

 

“We hung out with Tony Stark one time and he gave each of us a floor in his fancy tower.” Clint tells him because _perspective_. 

 

“So much therapy.” Sam mutters, before slipping into James’ room.

 

After Clint had called him, it had taken Sam most of the night and half of the next day to get to New York because of flight delays and having been in California for a thing. Sam’s been saying since he got here that he isn’t an expert, but he didn’t get it yet that they weren’t looking for an expert. They need someone who can sit down with a traumatized soldier and talk to him. Help him sort through the memories that won’t stop coming. Someone kind enough to be gentle, but unattached enough to keep going past the point where Nat shuts down, Clint has to leave the room, and Steve would one hundred percent go postal. Also, Sam’s a friend and there’s not a lot of people they can trust these days.

 

By the time Sam had arrived in a flurry of awesome and honest to God common sense, Clint and Natasha had been coming up on their forty-eighth hour of no sleep. James had been going through periods of lucidity, followed by severe pain in his head that sent his body into spasms. Sometimes, he recognized Natasha, other times, he begged for Steve. His memories were a mess, a collection of poorly stitched together pieces, and nothing was fitting right. A floodgate had been opened and they didn’t know how to stem the flow. They couldn’t leave him alone for the first twenty-four hours, both of them terrified that he would hurt himself if they looked away for even a second. One moment, James would be quiet, only knowing that he knew Steve, and recalling fragments of memories, and the next he would start screaming in Russian, calling for Natasha, Natalia, begging for someone to stop. 

 

The last couple of hours had been calmer. James had even been lucid enough to kick them out of his room when Sam finally, _finally_ rang the doorbell. Letting Sam in and collapsing on the couch was as far as Clint had got, before Nat had passed out on his shoulder, apparently trusting Sam to take it from here. 

 

Clint knows a little about brainwashing. He remembers what he did when Loki was behind the wheel, remembers the lives he took, the twang of his bow as he killed men and women he had worked beside. He also remembers the good things after and before, Nat, grinning over her shoulder at him, some kid’s toothy grin when he tells her, yeah, he really is Hawkeye, but has she met his friend Kate? These things, they exist side by side, they have to.

 

The Winter Soldier and James Barnes’ memories exist together in the same head, in the same man, a man who wasn’t completely one or the other. He was both. Bucky Barnes is the sum of who he was, what was done to him, what he has done to others, and who he is now. He’s coming out on the other side of all that horror, bleeding and bruised, wounded, but walking.

 

_He can do this._

 

_“_ Sam’s with James?” Nat asks him sleepily.

 

Clint traces her cheekbone with his finger.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Good.” She sighs and shoves her face into the crook of his neck, hooks one leg over his lap. “Sam is good.”

 

“Yeah,” Clint says, wrapping his arm around her waist. “Yeah, he is.”

 

He falls asleep eventually, waiting for Sam to come back out. He wakes up four hours later, stretched out on the couch, under a blanket, one hand bent awkwardly under his cheek. 

 

“Looking good, sleeping beauty.” Sam says dryly.

 

“Fuck you.” Clint wipes drool from the corner of his mouth and grimaces. 

 

“Where’s James?” Clint drags himself off the couch and stumbles over to where Sam sits at the kitchen table, a laptop and a couple of yellow files spread out in front of him.

 

“Sleeping.” Sam shuts his laptop. “Or he was an hour ago.”

 

“And Nat?”

 

Sam hesitates for a fraction of a second, and Clint stiffens. 

 

“Out. She left right after Barnes dropped off.” He says, fiddling with a bent corner of one of the files in front of him. 

 

“You’re not telling me something.” Clint says flatly. “Christ, it’s like you and Rogers bleed honesty and integrity. Shit liars. It’s the worst.”

 

Sam snorts. “Sure, man, whatever. She said she’d call you.”

 

Clint rubs his eyes, still way too tired for this shit. Nat would come back to him when she was ready; she always did. 

 

The sharp, irritating sound of the phone ringing shattered what was left of Clint’s post nap haze. He tripped over to the counter and snatched up his cell.

 

“This better be really fucking important, Stark.”

 

“Um, actually no, I was hoping to order a pizza. Is this not Papa John’s?” Stark’s familiar snark fills his ear. Clint knew he should’ve just ditched the hearing aids. 

 

“Okay, one, I do not for one second believe that you have ever been within a ten foot radius of a Papa John’s and two, _this better be really fucking important, Stark_.”

 

“Alright, alright, calm down, Katniss.” Stark’s voice loses some of its edge, creeping into serious talk tone and now Clint’s concerned.

 

“I may have done a thing.”

 

Clint groans.

 

“ _Tony_.”

 

“That’s Pepper’s line, Barton, patent pending, and it wasn’t my fault. Well, it was sort of my fault. Mostly my fault really, but Rogers started it and-”

 

“Wait, what about Steve?” Clint interrupts, glancing at Sam, who studiously refuses to meet his eye.

 

“Oh sure, now he’s interested.”

 

“ _Stark_.”

 

“God, okay, okay, I’m getting to it, keep your feathers on. So you know Steve’s boy, tall, dark and somewhat murderous but it wasn’t his fault?” Tony asks and Clint doesn’t slam his head into the nearest wall repeatedly as tempting as that seems at the moment. 

 

“Dude, he is literally sleeping in my guest bedroom right now, I know who he is and I know that you’re stalling. Out with it.” Clint snaps.

 

“You’ve been taking Scary Voice lessons from Natasha, haven’t you? Anyways, Steve shows up at my new, not demolished place and the guy looks seven different kinds of dead. He wants to know if I could have JARVIS run some things on Hydra. I thought he just wanted the intel, like closure or something, I wanted to help, but-”

 

“He’s been going after them.” Clint says suddenly and the room feels colder.

 

“If you could not interrupt me for like two seconds.” Tony sounds irritated and, Clint notices for the first time, very tired and possibly even concerned.

 

“But yeah, basically. He’s been pinpointing the locations of different bases and taking them out one by one. It’s been going on for weeks now and at first I thought okay, this is how he’s coping, but he isn’t stopping. And I have had more than my fair share of self-destructive habits, I’m excellent at those, but Steve’s going to kill himself if he keeps this up.”

 

Tony goes quiet for a moment, and Clint can hear him trying to breathe steady over the line.

 

“I won’t watch him do this to himself anymore.”

 

Clint wants to yell at him, but it wouldn’t be fair. Steve’s a grown man and if Tony hadn’t helped him, he would have found another way. It’s just, this isn’t only revenge, this is penance. Steve is trying to make up for the sin of letting his best friend fall by destroying the ones who dared to hurt him, but Tony’s right, it’s poison. Steve is never going to forgive himself, the guilt’s not going away, not ever, Clint knows that, Nat knows that, and Steve knows it too. He just needs someone to wade in and reel him back in from the edge. 

 

“Natasha knows, doesn’t she?” Clint says, after some deliberation.

 

Tony sighs and it’s laced with frustration.

 

“Yeah, she figured it out. I think she’s going to kill me.”

 

“Probably.” Clint agrees.

 

“I’ll write you out my will,” Tony warns him and Clint can’t help it, he laughs.

 

“Yeah, yeah, you’re laughing now, but I have cool stuff.” 

 

His voice drops again into that concerned tone that he’s very bad at concealing. Maybe that was another criteria of the whole Avengers thing, caring too much.

 

“Look, I know Wilson’s helping you with Barnes right now and that man is an absolute delight and I specialize in not liking people so there you go, but Steve’s free falling and I’ve never met anyone with such an aversion to parachutes in my life. Something I learned recently is that we all need a lifeline thrown our way, even if we can’t catch it the first time around.”

 

“Steve’s gonna be okay, Tony.” Clint says and he believes it, he does, because he believes in Steve.

 

Tony is silent for a long while.

 

“It’s time to bring them home. They’ve more than earned it.”

 

There’s a click and the call cuts off. Clint pinches the bridge of nose. Fucking Stark. 

 

The thing is, for a group of people who are supposed to be The Number One Team, they haven’t spent a lot of time together outside of saving the world occasionally. Tony has his company and Pepper, Bruce is only just starting to realize he doesn’t have to spend all his time alone, Thor has a whole goddamn realm outside of their little blip of an earth, Clint and Natasha are sort of a boxed set, but they’re both spies who’ve only had each other’s backs for the longest time that sometimes it’s hard to remember what playing on a team is like, and Steve, God, Steve was so fucking alone. The solitary soldier not returning from war, but returning to it. The walking wounded. He wears it well, hides it under the stars and the stripes and the ‘you’re welcome, ma’am, it was my pleasure’, but he’s bleeding out, has been since they pulled him out of the ice. 

 

There’s a man who used to be the one who pulled Steve Rogers back from whatever dark edge he found himself at, who was the parachute, the anchor, the lifeline, but that man’s having a bit of a hard time of it right now, and if they don’t already owe it to Steve, then they owe it to him. Someone has to look out for their captain, and he left big shoes to fill. 

 

Putting his phone back down, Clint rubs both hands over his face.

 

“Did you know about Steve?” He asks Sam abruptly.

 

Sam doesn’t answer him right away. He looks down at the table, gathering himself. Clint is struck for the first time with just how _weary_ Sam looks. He still sits tall and projects that relaxed, stable vibe that Clint associated with him from the moment they met, but his shoulders are tense, coiled, like a bowstring held too tight, trembling and taut with no target in sight. 

 

Sam starts to speak and Clint knew it was going to be bad, he’s seen his own share of bad, caved in skulls, shooting off fingers one two three, the delicate balance between broken and mad, but what Sam describes paints a nightmare so much darker than the ones that Clint fights. 

 

They had followed Barnes around Europe, always arriving too late at the remains of another blood-soaked Hydra base and after each near miss, Steve grew quieter and quieter. And then suddenly, Barnes returned to America. 

 

“We chased that boy across three countries and a dozen cities, and do you know where we found him? A damn bank vault in D. C.”

 

There’s something dark and unforgiving in Sam’s eyes as he recounts the scene they stumbled on to in that vault. Bodies everywhere, each one with a bullet to the chest or the head. Barnes had given his tormenters a quick death, a mercy that Steve (and Clint) would not have afforded them. It had been setting up to be like all of their other attempts to catch up to Barnes, but when they reached the deepest, innermost chamber of the bank, he was still there, half collapsed and bleeding heavily from a bullet wound in his leg.  

 

Monitors and wires were hooked up to a chair in the middle of the room. Two claw-like appendages extended from its back, designed to clamp around the head of the person sitting there. Thick, metal restraints designed to hold and prevent too much thrashing and a discarded mouth guard. Sam describes each with a voice flat with horror and Clint doesn’t notice that he’s clenched his fists until he feels blood seep around his fingernails.

 

Hydra had been meticulous in their documentation of the Winter Soldier, like a particularly long science project and Clint has to steady his breathing and remind himself that Nat will not forgive him for breaking another table when Sam tells him that there’d been a tape of Barnes’ last time in the vault.

 

It had been playing on a small, tv monitor tucked in one corner of the vault, underneath a row of safety deposit boxes. They hadn’t noticed at first because Barnes was blocking the view of the screen, hunched over and bleeding in front of it. 

 

“Everything was documented. Barnes is half collapsed, and drenched in blood, watching one of these tapes. He must have put it on, I don’t know, but Barnes remembered Steve. Kept saying that he knew him so they strapped him down and tore it all away. And Barnes was just watching that, watching himself scream and scream.”

 

“ _Christ_.” Clint sits down before he falls over. Or kills someone.

 

Sam rubs his eyes. “Yeah.”

 

“No wonder Steve...”

 

“Yeah. After we saw that tape, he just...checked out. No rage, no violence, nothing. He shut down. And Barnes wouldn’t let him near him. I patched him up as best I could and called Natasha. She got us somewhere safe while he healed and then she brought him here. I wanted to stay with Steve, but something came up with my sister in California and I had to fly out there. I get back and he’s tearing up the country, blowing up Hydra bases instead of dealing with his feelings. So no, I didn’t know, but I’m not surprised.”

 

There’s a million things Clint feels like he should say and not one of them is right. A headache is pounding behind his eyes and he wants to sleep for probably a day or do something really violent. 

 

“You were talking about Steve.”

 

James is standing in the door of his bedroom, hair tossled and pillow lines pressed on his cheek. 

 

“James-” Clint starts.

 

He frowns and makes a face. “Only my ma calls me James.”

 

“You got something better?”

 

He only hesitates for a second.

 

“Bucky. My name’s Bucky.”

 

Clint beams. “Okay, Bucky, I’m Clint.”

 

Bucky swats his offered hand away. 

 

“I know who you are, Barton.” He growls. “Didn’t forget you, it’s all the other stuff that’s jumbled up.”

 

Bucky’s still too pale and the circles under his eyes are deep and purple. He looks exhausted, but he’s standing and his eyes are lighter than Clint has seen them. There’s a clarity in his face that wasn’t there before, it’s tinged with pain and guilt and plenty of confusion, but they’ve weathered a storm.  

 

It’s not as if Bucky’s been healed, or whatever a process like this would even be called. But he’s remembering things, sorting through them in his head. They can help with that. They can get people who can help with that. This is a good moment. Clint wants to appreciate it.

 

“Where’s Steve?”

 

Sam looks at Clint, who desperately wishes that Natasha were here, but she isn’t so they’re gonna deal. He can handle this. 

 

“Do you want a waffle?” He asks and he can actually feel Sam’s Unimpressed Look.

 

Maybe that wasn’t completely handling it, but Bucky does look intrigued for a second, before his mouth snaps back into a frown. Clint figures it was at least worth a shot, but moves back to the table, his coffee now significantly cooler and kicks out a chair for Bucky, who sits down reluctantly. He holds himself stiffly, like he’s not quite sure what it is he’s supposed to be doing.

 

Bucky shifts in his chair, his hand clenching on the table, and turns slightly towards Sam, who has been quiet since Bucky emerged from his bedroom. His posture is relaxed and calm; he radiates stability and competence and Bucky is drawn to him like a moth to a flame.

 

“You were with Steve,” he says to Sam. It’s not a question.

 

Sam’s lips quirk into a smile.

 

“Yeah, I watch his back.”

 

“Good,” Bucky murmurs. Something sad and sweet flickers across his face, like catching a glimpse of something out of the corner of your eye, something you can no longer touch, but, God, you used to love to hold.

 

There’s a beat of silence between them, and Clint hears the sound of a dog barking below them, and the wind shutters around the fire escape outside, the metal bars swing and clang against the old brick building. It’s real and present, a testament to the way life goes on, free of the burdens of the past in a way people never can. 

 

“He loves you.” Sam says suddenly, and Clint thinks, this is it, this is the cliff. Whatever Sam’s doing, mentioning Steve like that, from now on out they’re free-falling.

 

“He shouldn’t.” Bucky’s shoulders curl in and he’s diminished, small, hunched over in one of Clint’s hoodies, with frayed sleeves that hide his palms even as his fingers twitch against the wood of the table.

 

“I’m-m’not...right.” Bucky draws his words like poison from a wound. “I’m...pieces. I can’t be _him_ , he’s dead, died on a metal table, it was so cold. And they just kept _cutting_.”

 

His voice breaks and he covers his mouth with trembling hands, trying to stifle the low keening that comes from the back of his throat. Sam’s kneeling by his side in a second, speaking softly.

 

“You’re safe. You’re here. Breathe with me, that’s right, nice and calm. Good man.”

 

Clint is so unspeakably grateful for Sam Wilson, he might even let Nat throw that Thanksgiving party she’s been threatening for years. Cautiously, Clint crouches down on Bucky’s other side. He looks down at him, one hand still clamped over his mouth, tears running over his fingers from red-rimmed eyes, and he reaches out with a small, muffled sound for Clint’s wrist. Clint guides his fingers and presses them against the place where his pulse beats, steady and strong underneath his skin. Bucky closes his eyes. 

 

Clint glances away from him to find Sam watching him, a strange expression on his face. 

 

“What?” Clint asks, only slightly defensively.

 

Sam just shakes his head and smiles. 

 

They sit there, Bucky’s fingers tight around Clint’s wrist, Sam gently reminding him to breathe, one hand resting on his knee. It might have been fifteen minutes or an hour, but eventually, Bucky takes his hand away from his mouth to wipe at his eyes. 

 

Sam squeezes his knee and stands up, quirking an eyebrow at Clint.

 

“You got this?”

 

Bucky still hasn’t let go of his wrist.

 

“Yeah.”

 

Sam nods once, slips his phone out of his pocket, and disappears outside. 

 

“M’fine.” Bucky mumbles.

 

It’s so pathetically sad and unfair and none of this is remotely fine, but Clint grins.

 

“Dude. Don’t try that with me, I already know you’re a tough guy.”

 

“Shut up, Barton.” Bucky says roughly, but one side of his mouth lifts in what could almost be a smile.Baby steps. 

 

“I’m not fine,” Bucky admits after a moment, his voice low and pained. 

 

He looks down at Clint, still crouching next to him.

 

“What if I’m never fine? What if I can’t- what if I hurt him- I could-”

 

Clint twists his wrist out of Bucky’s grasp to slide their fingers together. 

 

“Whoa there, man, don’t even go there.” He says, pressing his thumb into Bucky’s wrist until he looks at him, blue eyes glassy and scared. 

 

Clint doesn’t know where to start, words slip in and out of his head like water over rocks and none of them are right, but he needs them to be right because he’s the lifeline now. He doesn’t get to miss. 

 

“There was a thing a while back,” He begins, and his voice is steady. He’s more angry than terrified these days. “Nasty guy, crazy as fuck, tried to hurt a lot of people. It was the first time I worked with Steve, actually. Anyways, nasty guy has this thing, it’s magical or alien or how the fuck should I know, and he uses it to get in my head, to shove me aside and take the reins.”

 

Clint shudders, remembering the cold grasp of Loki’s fist around his mind, but Bucky is riveted, listening with wide eyes so he keeps talking.

 

“I killed people. People I knew, who I’d worked with. I fought Natasha like I didn’t even know who she was.”

 

Bucky flinches.

 

“It wasn’t me.” Clint says, he’s said that out loud before, talked to therapists, to Nat, even Sam, recently, but this is the first time he really feels it, knows it to be true. 

 

He grips Bucky’s hand.

 

“It wasn’t you. And it’s not fair because we both have to look at our hands and know that we’ve killed people who didn’t deserve to die because we weren’t at the wheel. It wasn’t your fault, Bucky, not one part of it.”

 

“I should’ve fought harder.” Bucky’s voice is hollow, but he hasn’t looked away from Clint.

 

“Yeah, that makes two of us.” Clint snorts. 

 

“Did you-did you hurt Natalia?” Bucky asks hesitantly, clearly caught between not asking something that Clint doesn’t want to talk about and very much not liking the idea of Nat being hurt, and Clint, who is a goddamn hero, does not laugh even though that is _incredibly adorable_. 

 

“Nothing she couldn’t handle,” Clint tells him and he’s unable to hide his grin. “She’s the one who brought me back, hit me so hard on the head that she literally knocked it out of me. I probably still have the bruise.”

 

“I hurt Steve.” He says it quietly, each word conveying an agony that Clint has not even come close to experiencing. 

 

“Would you hurt him now?” Clint asks bluntly.

 

Bucky stiffens and his lips press into an angry line.

 

“Never.”

 

Clint stands up, pulling Bucky with him. 

 

“And there you have it.” He grins at Bucky, who’s still frowning. 

 

Clint drops the smile, but he does grasp Bucky’s shoulder.

 

“Look, we got people who can look at your head if you’re worried about super secret ninja soldier triggers. Nat could even do it, if you want. But you gotta know, Barnes, we have your back now. No conditions.”

 

Bucky’s eyes are bright, but he manages a small smile. It quickly turns challenging, dangerous.

 

“Even if I want to go after Hydra, show them the fruits of their labor?” His voice has taken on a hard edge, and all Clint can think is that there is no place far enough for Hydra to run.

 

He grins at Bucky again, this time with all teeth and no humor.

 

“Dude. _Yes_.”

 

...

 

Bucky remembers some things and not others. He has nightmares so bad they drive him to the couch almost every night to stare at late night television programs with glassy eyes. Clint has taken to camping out in the living room so when Bucky inevitably emerges from his bedroom, trembling and sweating, Clint’s already there with his steady breathing and the remote within reach. 

 

Sam drops in every day, sometimes bringing food and always bringing coffee. He and Bucky talk together for hours and by the time Sam leaves, Bucky’s eyes are red and wet with tears and distant with longing or pain or regret or a mix of all three, but after a couple of hours, Clint will manage to get one of his almost smiles and at one point, something that could definitely sort of have been a laugh. 

 

It’s two weeks before his phone rings and Natasha’s there on the other line. 

 

“Hi,” Clint says.

 

A long, shaky breath filters through the phone and Clint’s gut clenches unpleasantly.

 

“Hi,” Nat’s voice is quiet and tinged with both regret and relief. 

 

“Are you okay?” Clint asks cautiously and Bucky looks up from where he had been pretending to eat what Clint had spectacularly failed at making for dinner.

 

“Yeah. Yeah, we’re okay.” She sounds steadier already, picking up on the question he hadn’t wanted to ask out loud.

 

“Good. That’s good.”

 

Natasha is with Steve and they’re both fine. She’s calling him now because they’ve done what they needed to do and worked out what they needed to work out and she’s coming home.

 

“How is he?” Natasha asks and Clint hears the apology in her voice, but there’s no need. She was where she needed to be. 

 

“Better. Sam’s been around a lot. Bucky got tired of waffles which is frankly unAmerican so he’s been feeding us instead.”

 

That startles a laugh out of Natasha and it’s the sweetest sound Clint’s heard in weeks. 

 

“Can I talk to her?” Bucky asks.

 

To his credit, Clint does not flinch at his entirely silent and sudden appearance at his side. 

 

“Put him on.” Natasha tells him quietly and Clint wordlessly hands over the phone. 

 

Bucky holds it gently, almost cradling it against his ear. Almost immediately, he starts speaking in Russian, soft at first, but gradually his voice grows louder and more agitated. He pulls at his hair in frustration at whatever Natasha is telling him and Clint hovers. He’s a hoverer.

 

Finally, Bucky falls silent except for a few, muttered words that Clint knows to be unflattering and he bites back a grin. 

 

“Are you coming back?” He sounds young and unsure and a tiny bit longing. If his voice breaks slightly, Clint pretends not to notice.

 

Whatever Natasha says to him in reply, seems to calm him and his death grip on the countertop loosens slightly. After a couple more moments, Bucky hands Clint back his phone, looking slightly disorientated but relatively calm, and then walks out of the kitchen, disappearing into his room. 

 

“Nat, you still there?”

 

“Yes. Clint, I need you to talk to James about Steve.” She says, her voice brisk and business like.

 

Clint makes a face.

 

“Don’t make that face.” Natasha tells him coolly. “We’ll be back tomorrow night, but Steve won’t come over until I tell him it’s okay. You need to find out if it’s okay.”

 

Clint leans against the fridge and rubs his forehead.

 

“And just asking him if it’s okay and him saying it’s okay means that it’s okay?”

 

Natasha is the only person on this planet and probably Asgard too, to whom that sentence would make sense and she answers him without missing a beat. It’s part of the reason why he loves her so much. 

 

“Yes. And if at any point, he decides he’s not ready, then he’s not ready and we don’t do this. Make sure he knows that. It’s his choice or not at all.”

 

That’s his wonderful, wonderful Natasha, determination and anger, tightly controlled and manageable, focusing her and what she knows needs to be done. Losing Fury and Shield shook her, but he always knew her foundation was stronger than all of that even, _especially_ , when she didn’t. 

 

“Got it. And Romanoff?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“I really fucking missed you.”

 

“Catch you on the flip side, Barton.”

 

He absolutely knows that she’s smirking when he yells, “You did _not_!”

 

There’s a click and she’s gone. Clint shakes his head, but he’s still smiling as he walks over to Bucky’s door and knocks. A quiet ‘come in’ from inside and he pushes open the door. 

 

Bucky’s on the bed, almost completely hidden under a mound of pillows and blankets. Clint can just see the top of his head, messy dark hair, peaking out. Bucky slowly pulls a blanket away from his face, but he still has a pillow clutched to his chest.

 

“How ya doing in there?” Clint asks, with only a hint of a smirk.

 

Bucky glowers.

 

“It’s warm.”

 

Clint’s expression turns serious, thinking of cryochambers and endless winter, and he sits down on the edge of the bed. 

 

“So Natasha asked me to ask you something.” He hedges, uncertain.

 

Bucky looks at him, eyebrows drawn together.

 

“Okay.”

 

“It’s about Steve.” Clint continues and then pauses, giving Bucky plenty of time to stop him there. 

 

Bucky stiffens and he holds the pillow even tighter against his chest, but then he nods jerkily.

 

“Okay.”

 

Clint takes a deep breath and looks at Bucky, conveying as much understanding and support that he knows how.

 

“Do you want to see him?”

 

The questions hangs in the air between them like a blade on a string, it’s been over their heads for so long, Clint’s gotten used to the tension. But then Bucky reaches out and cuts the string.

 

“I- yes. _Yes_.” For a second, Bucky seems surprised at his own answer and when he looks at Clint, his eyes are bright with tears.

 

“It’s been a long time.” He whispers and it’s haunted.

 

“I think,” Clint starts slowly. “I think that he missed you every day of it.”

 

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut and a tear slips down his cheek. He rubs at his eyes angrily for a moment and then sighs.

 

“He’s such a fucking idiot.”

 

Okay, so that was not entirely the reaction Clint had been expecting. 

 

“Maybe don’t start with that,” He suggests and Bucky gives him a thoroughly unamused look. 

...

 

“Okay, but are you _super_ sure? Because I can call Nat and tell her-”

 

“Barton.” Bucky grinds out through clenched teeth, his hands tense, but not trembling at his sides.

 

Clint has been pacing in the living room for the better part of an hour while Bucky leans against the far wall, next to the hall that leads to his bedroom and only a few steps from the kitchen. Neither of them have succeeded in appearing casual or at the very least, unconcerned, but Clint pretty much had that hope trashed from the moment Bucky decided to go through with this. 

 

After a couple of days of indecision, one relatively minor panic attack, and Clint sleeping in his own bed a grand total of zero times, Natasha is finally on her way over. With Steve. Clint really, really wants this to go well, he’s trusting Nat to have prepped Steve thoroughly on Do’s and Don’ts and for Steve to be not an idiot so he doesn’t have to punch him in the jaw. Clint doesn’t want to punch Captain America in the jaw.

 

He will though. 

 

That realization doesn’t sit as uncomfortably in his gut as he would have thought. Clint glances at Bucky, who is stubbornly trying to calm himself through breathing exercises. His brow is furrowed in concentration, not pain, and he’s intent on his task, worrying on his bottom lip with his front teeth. And yeah, okay, Clint gets why he’d deck Captain America if he fucks this up.

 

“I’m just sayin’,” Clint says and Bucky rolls his eyes, but he smiles and it’s apprehensive, but tinged with something a lot like this look Natasha gets when they’re curled up on the couch together, his head in her lap. 

 

“I know.”

 

They lapse into silence again. Clint resumes his pacing and Bucky murmurs to himself, counting each breath as he takes it. 

 

Clint’s phone vibrates and he pulls it out of his pocket so quickly he almost drops it. Bucky stiffens immediately and Clint throws him a reassuring smile before pulling up Natasha’s text. It’s just one word, ‘here’, but she’s added a little penguin emoji and he grins stupidly for a moment. 

 

“They’re outside.” Clint says and then waits. He won’t go let them in until Bucky tells him too. That was his promise.

 

“Okay.” Bucky exhales once, hard, but his voice doesn’t shake. “Okay.”

 

This was Bucky’s: to tell him when he was okay and when he wasn’t.

 

“Okay.” Clint consents and opens the door. 

 

Natasha steps inside first. She looks tired, but her shoulders are lighter than when she’d left. Something loosens in Clint’s chest as he drinks in the sight of her, safe and home. She smiles at him and kisses his cheek before heading for Bucky.

 

She stops in front of him and cocks her head.

 

“Natalia.” Bucky says roughly.

 

Natasha’s face softens and she reaches out slowly, and when Bucky doesn’t pull back, she takes his hand. 

 

“Natasha, now.” She says quietly, fondly.

 

Bucky bites his lip uncertainly and then relaxes.

 

“Natasha.” He repeats.

 

Nat grins and squeezes his hand before letting go.

 

“You’re still James to me.” She says. “Is that okay?”

 

Bucky takes the question in stride even though Clint knows he still falters sometimes at the notion of being asked his opinion.

 

“Yes. For you, kotyonok.”

 

Natasha reaches up and tenderly tucks a strand of hair behind Bucky’s ear.

 

“It’s going to be okay.” She whispers.

 

Clint smiles when she comes back to him, tucking herself into his side. He wraps his arm around her shoulders and presses a kiss to the side of her head.

 

Clint sees it in Bucky’s eyes the moment Steve walks through the door. Steve looks like hell, but Clint imagines that’s still a lot better than when Natasha found him a few weeks ago. Bucky’s whole body shudders, but he doesn’t look away from Steve once, his eyes so wide it would be comical except for the hope and anguish and longing that battle there, fierce as a storm and even more devastating.  

 

“Bucky?” Steve sounds wrecked, all his hopes pinned on that one word, that name, the question poised on a tip of a knife that falters and sways and there’s no doubt that it will fall, but it’s all about the direction. You either fall on the knife, or you don’t.

 

“Hiya, Stevie.” Bucky says and his voice splinters, and he stumbles forward a step, one hand reaching out for Steve, grasping desperately.

 

Steve makes a small, broken sound and takes a step towards Bucky and then another. Clint tenses, but Natasha murmurs, “Let them.”

 

They’re inches apart now. Bucky’s hand is back at his side, but his fingers are trembling with want, need, _something_. Steve stares down at Bucky with wonder in his eyes, like Bucky is unspeakably precious and if he looks away for even a second, he’ll be gone again. 

 

“May I?” Steve asks quietly and slowly lifts his hand, ready to reach across what little space remains between them.

 

Bucky nods jerkily, and Steve takes his hand. The noise that Bucky makes as their fingers slide together isn’t pained or broken, it’s a delighted, awed response to a touch that isn’t cold or cruel or clinical. Steve is trembling, clearly holding himself back from pulling Bucky into his arms out of the fear of causing him any distress. Clint is so fucking proud of him. 

 

Bucky decides for himself though, stepping into Steve’s space and peering up at him through thick eyelashes. Hesitantly, he curls his free hand around Steve’s other arm, just under his elbow.

 

“It’s okay,” he whispers.

 

And Steve, Steve just _breaks_. His entire body slumps even as his arms come up and wrap around Bucky. Bucky clings to him, his hands fisted in Steve’s jacket while both of them shake and shake and shake.

 

“Come on,” Natasha says in a low voice and grabs Clint’s hand. Before she pulls him into their bedroom, Clint looks back.

 

Bucky is hiding his face in the crook of Steve’s neck while Steve whispers something over and over into his hair. It’s not until Clint is pulling the door shut behind him that he makes out what Steve is saying. 

 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry.”

 

...

 

_Three months later_

 

Clint wakes up to the sound of quiet laughter, followed by a loud thump. He sits up quickly and after glancing at the clock, groans. That’s fine, he didn’t want a nap anyways. Grumbling to himself, Clint kicks off his blanket and stands, blinking sleep from his eyes while blindly grasping around for his shirt. When he thinks he probably has his arms through the right holes, he stumbles out into the living room. 

 

“Oh, for the love of-”

 

Bucky grins up at him, like he isn’t currently straddling Steve _on Clint’s couch._

 

“Mornin’, sleeping beauty.”

 

“I hate you.” Clint announces, stalking into the kitchen. “I hate you so much.”

 

Natasha hands him a mug silently and he looks at her, peering closely. He groans.

 

“I thought better of you, Nat.”

 

She shrugs. 

 

“They’re very cute.”

 

Clint sips his coffee morosely.

 

“But do they have to be cute on _our couch_?”

 

Nat gives him a flat look.

 

“Because we’ve never done anything more than cuddle on that thing.”

 

There’s a yelp and another thump as, Clint can only assume, Steve attempts to shoot to his feet and Bucky hits the floor.

 

Clint isn’t paying attention though; he frowns at Natasha.

 

“You saying ‘cuddle’ was kinda weird.”

 

“It was, wasn’t it?” She looks thoughtful. 

 

Steve and Bucky, who are apparently done necking on other people’s furniture, walk into the kitchen. They make a sight. Steve’s cheeks are flushed and he’s trying to flatten his hair, while Bucky smirks at him and makes absolutely no move to straighten his own hair, which stands out at angles that shouldn’t be possible, if the laws of physics are still thing.

 

The shadows under Bucky’s eyes have faded to a lighter purpler and he smiles more now, but Clint and Natasha, they’ve done what they can for him. Maria Hill called in a couple of favors and secured him and Steve a place in Brooklyn and Sam’s recommendations for different therapists are going as well as can be expected. Bucky still prefers to talk with Sam rather than a stranger, but he’s doing better. He’s pulling together the pieces of himself that Hydra and Shield tore away from him, he’s fought bitterly for each one, and it makes Clint so goddamn happy because _they didn’t get him._ They didn’t win this one.

 

In his line of work, the good guys don’t always win, sometimes they never win, and more often than not, you don’t even know who the good guy is, even when it’s supposed to be you. But this time, he knows that they did good. It’s not very hard to see. 

 

Bucky leans into Steve and smiles up at him, soft and sweet. Steve kisses his temple, his fingers tugging through Bucky’s hair. Natasha shakes her head and throws a towel at them while Clint smirks into his mug. Later, they’ll carry Bucky’s boxes down to Steve’s car and Nat will hug both of them, whispering something to Steve that will make him smile and something to Bucky that will make him blush and shove her. Clint will hug them too because whoever decided that dudes don’t hug each other clearly was not hugged enough. Bucky’ll get into the car first, closing the door and reaching for the radio. Steve will stand there for a moment looking at them and not knowing what to say, but it’ll be okay because Natasha will kiss his cheek and say “Take care, Rogers” and Clint will smirk and say “Take your boy home, Steve” and Steve will probably salute them because he’s a cheeky bastard. And when they finally do drive away, it’ll be into the sunset because this time, they get a fucking happy ending.

 

_Fin._

 

**Author's Note:**

> This monstrosity is something I've been working on for awhile. Now that it's finished I'm probably dead. Title taken from that one Richard Siken poem. You know, the sad one.


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